Product Description

Douglas Sirk the master of the Hollywood melodrama turns back to his native Germany at the time of the Second World War for the film that would stand as his penultimate American feature: A Time to Love and a Time to Die. A CinemaScope production staged on a grand scale, Sirk's picture nevertheless pulsates with an intimacy that has known longing for too long, and seethes with the repression of emotions poised to explode like bombs. John Gavin plays Ernst Gräber, a soldier on the Russian-German Front in 1944 venturing home to Hamburg on a rare furlough. Upon arrival, he discovers a city that bears little resemblance to the one he left behind and so, through the rubble of the air-raids, he searches desperately for fragments of his family's shattered lives. But amid the shards, he falls in love with Elisabeth (Liselotte Pulver), the charming daughter of his parents' doctor, and thus activates a magnetism that compels both individuals toward one another in love, even as it hurtles them headlong into epochal death. Adapted from the novel by Erich Maria Remarque (the author of All Quiet on the Western Front, who also makes a cameo appearance in Sirk's picture), A Time to Love and a Time to Die takes its literary source and sculpts it anew out of matter made from colour, decor, and performance and arguably bests the novel on all aesthetic levels. And yet perhaps nothing can better summarise the power of Sirk's film or of his entire body of work than these words from the movie's trailer: "Their pounding hearts drowned out the sound of chaos thundering around them." The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present Douglas Sirk's 1958 masterpiece for the first time on home video in the UK. ****SPECIAL TWO-DISC Edition including: --Gorgeous new anamorphic transfer of the film in its original 2:35:1 CinemaScope aspect ratio --English SDH subtitles for the hearing impaired --OF TEARS AND SPEED: ACCORDING TO JEAN-LUC GODARD a 12-minute, visually annotated recitation of Jean-Luc Godard's seminal essay on Sirk's film. --19-minute video interview with Wesley Strick, screenwriter of Scorsese's Cape Fear and author of the novel Out There in the Dark, a roman-à-clef based upon Sirk's life in Hollywood and his relationship with the estranged son who took a starring role in Hitler Youth propaganda. --IMITATION OF LIFE [MIRAGE OF LIFE]: A PORTRAIT OF DOUGLAS SIRK a 49-minute film portrait from 1984, directed by Daniel Schmid and photographed by Renato Berta, of Douglas Sirk and his wife Hilda in conversation, and reflecting, from their apartment in Germany, back upon their lives in Hollywood. --The original trailer for the film, from the time it retained the provisional title of simply "A TIME TO LOVE" --36-page booklet containing the complete text of Jean-Luc Godard's essay on the film, writings from critic Tag Gallagher on the film and Sirk's career in general, and an assemblage of notes that includes excerpts from Sirk's reflections upon the film, remarks upon visual motifs inside the movie, the CinemaScope process used to photograph the picture, and more.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #14954 in DVD
• Released on: 2009-03-30
• Rating: Parental Guidance
• Format: PAL
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 127 minutes

Synopsis
During World War II, German soldier Ernst Graeber (John Gavin) leaves the ferocious fighting on the Russian front to return home on furlough but upon arrival finds his house decimated and his parents gone. He and a childhood acquaintance, Elizabeth Kruse (Lilo Pulver), find one another amid the ruins of the town and fall in love, though Graeber knows he must eventually leave Elizabeth and return to combat.


Director Douglas Sirk, drawn throughout his brilliant career to stories of desperate men and women ensnared in perilous affairs, found his most extreme scenario with A TIME TO LOVE AND A TIME TO DIE. The result of this perfect match between director and subject matter is astounding: a film in which each feverish frame shimmers with an almost supernatural intensity. While focusing unwaveringly on the doomed love of the couple at the centre of his film, Sirk also explores the darkest corners of a world tearing itself apart. A particularly frightening element of Sirk's epic canvas is the men in Graeber's town allowing the war to transform them into nightmare versions of themselves. A TIME TO LOVE AND A TIME TO DIE was based on a novel by Erich Maria Remarque, who has a cameo role in the film.

Customer Reviews

Finally a restored masterpiece...
After "All Quiet on the Western Front", fans of Erich Maria Remarque, watched a movie called "A Time To Love and A Time To Die".

Based on the book with the same name, it is a love story set in last war years of World War II in Germany.

When others were drumming the Victor's side of things, this movie dared to look into German commoner's lives and their tragic fates.

This movie has nothing to do with pro and cons of German involvement and guilt about having unleashed the Storm.

It just deals with the lives of two selected young individuals, who witness at first hand what War is really all about.
Add a slight love story and tension caused by your own surroundings (Gestapo, SS, Propaganda machine, etc.), and you will see that this is far more than your common Drama.

Everyone can recognize him/herself in the two main characters.

It is a lesson of life versus death.

It tells you how destructive war can be, for those who are living it and have nothing to say about it.

The storms, or winds of war, are terrible companions, when they touch you personally.

This is the message this transliteration tries to convey, and may I say, rather successfully, despite the Hollywood cast included in it.

John Gavin plays the leading role, and for once, he is given a fair chance to prove that he was not just another "beau", but truly a full-bred actor who could incarnate a true-to-life character.

Liselotte Pulver, as his fiancee, bride-to-be, appears as a very young and very inexperienced girl, overwhelmed by this immense tide of war.

There is nothing romantic in all this, no pink dresses, no sweet lulls.
Just the harsh realities in war-torn Germany.
How to survive the bombings, how to survive the political police, and so on and so forth.

This is truly another Anti-War movie.
For those who understand what War is really all about.

As I started writing this, I had mentioned that it is finally being decently transferred onto DVD.

I did own an old PAL VHS tape of this movie, which was decent, but not satisfactory, considering that this movie had a very wide screen ratio.

Pan & Scan had marred the entire action and the desolated landscape scenes of this movie.
Now, on DVD, you get the best transfer ever.
It is in the correct 2.35:1 anamorphic aspect ratio, sports a conventional but full and crisp 2.0 Mono soundtrack and has been digitally restored in High Definition.

You also receive a second DVD with tons of extra material for your eye's delight.

Did I mention? It was directed by one of the masters of the genre: Douglas Sirk (Imitation of Life, Written on the Wind, Battle Hymn, etc.)
and the score is by the great master of spectacular film music himself, Miklos Rozsa.

I must insist on this. Get a copy before it's gone.
You won't regret it one bit.

It is part of our cultural heritage, and as such, it has to be collected.

This is film history.

Old fashioned entertainment.
This was a really enjoyable romantic film - set mainly in Berlin at the end of the war. WW2 action buffs beware: only around 20 minutes of this film relates to war on the Eastern Front. However, do not let this put you off - as the film is a heart rending account of the love between a German soldier and the daughter of a Jewish teacher. A really moving film, lovingly made by a famous director.